tberton

That would have been a real slyboots move from Chris.

That header image made me think this was a new Terminal7 episode for a second.

Dishonored doesn't have any steam-powered technology though. In fact, the entire premise of Dishonored seems to be "what if the industrial revolution was fueled by whale oil instead of steam" (while Blades in the Dark asks a similar question, replacing "whale oil" with "ghosts"). I've always thought of steampunk at least in part being about "what if steam-powered technology had gone further?"

That's a pretty good definition Gormongous and one that Dishonored and Blades in the Dark would probably fit into. I suppose I just prefer Industrial Fantasy as a term, because it's more descriptive and has less baggage.

I've never read Perdido Street Station, but I know that Blades doesn't advertise itself as steampunk anyway. The flashback system is really neat. Basically, if you're on a job and decide you want something in the past to have been true (like, "I bribed that guard earlier" or "I sabotaged their magic alarms"), you take a certain amount of Stress (the game's sort-of equivalent to HP) and then we just flashback to the scene of you doing that thing. The idea is to encourage Ocean's Eleven-style action, where it's revealed that the characters had planned for this all along, instead of spending hours as players bickering over the minutiae of a plan. Blades is very close to the top of my list of games I want to play.

I think the core setting of Blades in the Dark is more Industrial Fantasy, rather than steampunk (and I'd argue that Dishonored is as well), because it's not "Victorian, but with steam powered everything" but rather "Victorian, but with magic". In any case, I super excited for them to play Blades, because the system is super cool, from the little I've read of it. Highlights: a really flexible action system that gives players a lot of control over how they do what they do; rules for flashbacks, so that planning missions doesn't get in the way of doing missions; a "positioning" system, so that the results of your actions vary based on whether you've got a Controlled, Dangerous, or Risky position vis-a-vis the action; and a character sheet for the group as a whole, so that you get advancement outside of your individual character. I'm excited to see how they take to the game.

The name "Shadow Cabinet" is certainly one of the best parts of the Westminster system.

I've never seriusly engaged with Chess, but I know my Chess game felt a lot better after I had played a lot of Euros and other modern board games. It felt as though I was better at planning ahead and seeing the possibilities on the board. On the topic of Chess variants, the only one I've played is COIN Chess and it's flipping great. It adapts the COIN wargaming system for Chess, so that each colour is split into Nobles and Peasants, with limitations on which pieces they can move and how they score points. I highly recommend giving it a shot if you can find three other interested players.

Yeah, it's Wii U, but I don't know what you're on about. That game is gorgeous.

Just finished the Friends at the Table Season Finale. Good stuff. Keep it wavy.

When I asked Austin on Twitter, he said that Season 3 would return to the setting of Season 1 at least, so I presume that means they'll be playing Dungeon World, although maybe they'll switch to a different system.

Reasons people might go to bars with friends: They have draft beer. They have better cocktails or food than you care to/are able to make for yourself. You don't want to clean your house for guests (which you mentioned). You don't want to clean your house after guests (which you didn't mention, but I think is a bigger reason). There's a bar near you that has a great atmosphere/employees. You want to watch a sports game and don't have cable. Your friend live far away and its easier to meet at a halfway point than go all the way to their place or have them come to yours. You're going dancing afterwards and the bar is near the club. You have neighbours that don't like people being noisy late at night. Your house or apartment isn't big enough to accomodate your friends. You live in an out of the way or dangerous neighbourhood that your friends don't want to go to. You and your friends want to meet people. You live with other people who don't want to be bothered by your friends. There's a bar near your workplace or school, so you go there with classmates or coworkers. I'm sure there are more.

I don't watch the show, but from my understanding, the plot has diverged so much from the books that it's not necessarily going to spoil you.

Soren Johnson just posted the rules for his new game, Offworld. It seems really neat, especially in how influenced it is by Euro-style board games, as evidenced by him explaining the game like a board game rulebook. While I'm not a huge fan of some of the games he's taking inspiration from, I'm happy to see video game designers looking to board games for inspiration. I'll be pretty tempted to pick this game up once I get some time in the fall.

It looks pretty much like Civ V to me.

If you want to learn more about GMing specifically, Adam Koebel's Office Hours show is really good. Right now it's just a Twitch and YouTube thing, but he'll be releasing the first ten episodes as podcasts soon.

Double-post to say that I'm using a Volt Disruptor and it doesn't have a cooldown, so either you misunderstood something or they've changed this in the intervening months.

Finally bought this in the Humble Sale yesterday, along witht the DLC. It's as good as I expected it to be. Nearly done my first Experienced run (I skipped Beginner) and I've already had a lot of super tense close calls which have been awesome. The Rewinds are a life saver, although I would really love a generic "Undo" button. Sometimes I just misclick and want to erase that move, rather than rewinding all the way back to the previous turn. But I can understand that that might screw with the design.

See, for cutest I think I'd go: Squirtle, Chikorita, Torchic, Piplup, Snivy, Fennekin, Rowlet.

Ah, okay. Chespin's fine, but Fennekin evolves into a Wizard Fox and Froakie evolves into a a Frog Ninja, so it's pretty tough to beat that.

Hmm? Litten is a pun. Do you mean Blaze? The Abilities don't tend to be puns, I don't think. Also, Twig, no way is Chespin the best starter from Gen VI. Froakie and Fennekin are way cooler.

Are you new to Pokemon? The puns are much more rampant than that.

Soren, I appreciate that there's an achievement for avenging you.

Ran into one of the communities best players in matchmaking today and got my ass handed to me three times. Got a heel on my neck and he never let me wriggle free.

While it has been proven that there are infinite Prime Directives, the Twin Prime Directive conjecture, which supposes that there are infinite Twin Prime Directives, has yet to be proven (although it is believed to be true).